Site of Alvarado School, Church and Union Building

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and it's a story worth tellin'. Back in 1854, a man named E.M. Heath petitioned for the formation of Johnson County.

That same year, a man named William Balch gave this very site, the ground you're passing right now, for a school, a church, and a union meeting-house. Not one of those things. All three.

The residents got to work and raised up a one-room log building, and that single room had to do a whole lot of heavy lifting. It served as a school for the children, and a meeting space for not one, not two, but four congregations: Baptist, Methodist, Disciples of Christ, and Cumberland Presbyterian, all sharing the same walls, presumably on different Sundays. And when the preachers stepped aside, the county officials stepped in, using that same room for community events and the kind of civic conversations that shape a place.

The creation of Johnson County itself was debated here. The incorporation of Alvarado, talked over right here. One little log room, carrying the weight of an entire community's future.

Now, things changed some when W.C. Wright, son of mayor J.H. Wright, and his wife Mollie built a home on this site in 1871.

But even then, officials kept right on meeting here. The building didn't stop bein' useful just because a family moved in next door. And today?

That property is still standing as a private residence. The log room is long gone, but the ground remembers everything that happened on it.

What the marker says

In 1854, E.M. Heath petitioned for the formation of Johnson County. That year, William Balch gave this site for a school, church and union meeting-house. Residents constructed a one-room log building for a school and meeting space for Baptist, Methodist, Disciples of Christ and Cumberland Presbyterian congregations, as well as for county officials and community events. Here, people discussed many issues, including Johnson County's creation and Alvarado's incorporation. Officials continued meeting here after W.C. Wright, son of mayor J.H. Wright, and his wife, Mollie, built a home here in 1871. The property remains the site of a private residence. (2004)